Yeah, you knew this was coming, right? Well, here is a reminder from the reality-based community, which I’m sure this cretin Morrison will dutifully ignore (and a guy named Batman too? Insert your snark here)…
Update 11/12/12: As Spencer Tracy famously proclaimed in "Inherit The Wind," "fanaticism and ignorance are forever busy, and need feeding" (here).
…and I think this is an appropriate musical response from Randy Newman (he’s being tongue-in-cheek, but I’m not).
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Friday, November 09, 2012
Friday Stuff
(I also posted here.)
God, is it ever good to know that Alan Grayson is returning to Congress (here – and yes, it’s a good thing that Obama won, but he’s got to get off this “I want to go into the books as a transformative politician so I may go along with some Repug BS” trip; love to be wrong and see Obama take a more progressive turn)…
…and I want to combine a couple of things here: first, this time two years ago, I was brooding like crazy over the Dems losing the House and some of their Senate majority, so under the circumstances, I think I should be allowed to include an “up” kind of a tune; second, Rolling Stone Magazine debuted on this day 45 years ago with a certain John Winston (Ono) Lennon on the cover – so under the circumstances, I think this is appropriate.
God, is it ever good to know that Alan Grayson is returning to Congress (here – and yes, it’s a good thing that Obama won, but he’s got to get off this “I want to go into the books as a transformative politician so I may go along with some Repug BS” trip; love to be wrong and see Obama take a more progressive turn)…
…and I want to combine a couple of things here: first, this time two years ago, I was brooding like crazy over the Dems losing the House and some of their Senate majority, so under the circumstances, I think I should be allowed to include an “up” kind of a tune; second, Rolling Stone Magazine debuted on this day 45 years ago with a certain John Winston (Ono) Lennon on the cover – so under the circumstances, I think this is appropriate.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Thursday Stuff
Looks like we have some late-breaking election results :-)..
…and for more comedy, Jon Stewart nails the usual media culprits over the election here…
…and this reality-based commentary by Rachel Maddow should be required viewing for every voter (more here, and I thought this was some great commentary also)…
…and I’ve had this song in my head all day – all I can do about this is hope.
…and for more comedy, Jon Stewart nails the usual media culprits over the election here…
…and this reality-based commentary by Rachel Maddow should be required viewing for every voter (more here, and I thought this was some great commentary also)…
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
…and I’ve had this song in my head all day – all I can do about this is hope.
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Wednesday Stuff
Time to say adios to some departing Repugs on Capitol Hill – first, U.S. Rep Roscoe Bartlett…
…next, fellow House Repug Joe Walsh…
…and Allen West…
Update 12/2/12: Gee, I wonder if West should go watch a play (here)?
…and Todd (“Legitimate Rape”) Akin…
…and “Holy Joe” Lieberman in the Senate (and please spare me the "independent" label...and how funny is this clip anyway – and as far as the “5 trillion Obama debt” claim goes, read #3 from here and learn that that number is actually associated with Obama’s wretched predecessor)…
…and yes, I realize there’s a wholly other context to this song, but this is probably a nice “good riddance” number for all of the above; you can probably argue that this is a good tune for the end of the overall campaign too.
…next, fellow House Repug Joe Walsh…
…and Allen West…
Update 12/2/12: Gee, I wonder if West should go watch a play (here)?
…and Todd (“Legitimate Rape”) Akin…
…and “Holy Joe” Lieberman in the Senate (and please spare me the "independent" label...and how funny is this clip anyway – and as far as the “5 trillion Obama debt” claim goes, read #3 from here and learn that that number is actually associated with Obama’s wretched predecessor)…
…and yes, I realize there’s a wholly other context to this song, but this is probably a nice “good riddance” number for all of the above; you can probably argue that this is a good tune for the end of the overall campaign too.
Some Random Post-Election Thoughts
I don’t have much to add here, except to congratulate returning Dem U.S. Senator Bob Casey and returning Dem state house reps Steve Santarsiero and John Galloway on their electoral wins last night.
And while it’s a shame that Kathy Boockvar lost last night in her quest to send Mikey the Beloved packing and give U.S. PA-08 some decent representation for a change, I can’t say that I’m totally surprised. The PA Repugs redrew PA-08 in 2010 in a way that would make it monumentally difficult for any Dem to win that district (I also thought Boockvar was a little too “nice” for much of the campaign – there was plenty to go after in Mikey’s appalling voting record over the last two years, and she could have done that earlier on even with the corporate media tut-tutting about supposedly going negative, which she would have done well to disregard anyway).
To illustrate about how difficult it is for a Dem to win PA-08, let me point out that, in 2006, Patrick Murphy barely lost the Bucks County portion of the district, but won enough of the “slivers” of Montgomery County and Philadelphia to win the district overall. Well, when the district was redrawn in 2010, those silvers were removed and replaced with Repug strongholds, of course.
Think about that for a minute the next time you hear anyone point out how supposedly “moderate” Bucks County is. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran, was running when the Bush Administration was still in power, with the debacle in Mesopotamia becoming totally apparent (and Mikey the Beloved was totally tethered to it, as you might expect) and the Katrina catastrophe was still fresh in everyone’s minds, with Dubya’s approval numbers sinking like a stone as a result. And Murphy still lost Bucks (not whining about it, just stating the truth).
(Also, I think this was a rather hilarious commentary by the Philadelphia Inquirer, assuming that Mikey would honor his term limits pledge. This guy once made a term-limit pledge too, and after last night, he’s going back to Washington also…if past is prologue, then his main opponent Aryanna Strader did well in Berks and OK in Chester counties, but Pitts probably cleaned up thanks to those poor saps in Lancaster County once more).
Returning to Mikey, I honestly would like to know how he would have fared without the benefit of his full-page ads that, in typical fashion, ran in the Bucks County Courier Times for about two weeks prior to the election. I would say that that more than neutralized that paper’s lack of an endorsement (as well as the paper’s total failure to report on this stunning development).
And while I’m on the subject of the Courier Times, is there a bigger bunch of jokers than that paper’s editorial board, which, except for Santarsiero and Galloway, basically punted on many of its endorsements (including deciding to say nothing about Casey and “Teabag Tom” Smith)?
And while the paper had the right to endorse Willard Mitt Romney here, they did so in part for the following reason: “Social Security is on the cusp of insolvency”…
Uh, no.
Finally, the most hilarious notion I’ve heard yet is that the results of this election will make the Republican Party reach out to minorities and other demographics that helped propel President Obama to a second term, as well as achieving victory for other Dems.
Really? You mean we’ll actually be spared the sight of another clown show of GOP presidential candidate “debates” like what we had to endure earlier this year, which was aimed at ginning up support from the Teahadists and practically no one else?
That’s almost too funny for words.
Take a look at this chart. This is the future of today’s Republican Party, eventually sinking like a stone as elderly white conservatives shed their respective mortal coils and pass from this world into the next.
And take future GOP electoral prospects right along with them (Update 11/8/12: And take a look at this one too).
Update 11/7: By the way, in my prior comments, I didn’t mean to blow off Kathy Boockvar. I think she ran pretty much a common-sense, centrist kind of a campaign. And in a lot of places depending on which election cycle you’re talking about, that might have been good enough to win.
However, what I tried to point out above is that, for a Democrat to win in PA-08 anymore, you need to upset the proverbial apple cart to get attention from enough voters who would only vote for a Dem if they were thoroughly disenchanted with a Repug. As an example, Florida’s Patrick Murphy defeated the thoroughly odious Allen West in Florida, but even as bad as West is, he still garnered a huge percentage of the vote. I use that example because, based on my admittedly limited review, I think that district in FLA mirrors PA-08 in a lot of ways (and as I also pointed out, the fact that a just-about daily newspaper of a fairly large circulation carries the proverbial water of Mike Fitzpatrick on a continual basis doesn’t help matters, but I honestly don’t expect that to change).
Running as a Dem in PA-08, you’ve got to really “go big” on the issues and somehow get your message through the filters of the cable shouters, other commercial media including print and broadcast and the wingnutosphere directly to the people. And if I knew how to do that (and if I had enough money and the right pedigree, which I don’t), well, hell, I might even take a crack myself. And in PA-08, you’ve got to do that and also find a way to dismantle the “moderate Mikey” mythology perpetuated by the Courier Times as well as radio station WBCB, with its news director Pat Wandling also serving as one of Mikey’s biggest mouthpieces. And so far, as I said, that hasn’t been accomplished yet.
To be fair to Boockvar, though, you can’t pretend to be something you’re not. I had a chance to speak with her briefly while working the phones in Bristol, PA recently, and I found her to be engaging and thoroughly professional. She would have been a great rep, but we are where we are. I hope she and her family can now take the time to put all this noise behind them and reconnect with each other once again.
And while it’s a shame that Kathy Boockvar lost last night in her quest to send Mikey the Beloved packing and give U.S. PA-08 some decent representation for a change, I can’t say that I’m totally surprised. The PA Repugs redrew PA-08 in 2010 in a way that would make it monumentally difficult for any Dem to win that district (I also thought Boockvar was a little too “nice” for much of the campaign – there was plenty to go after in Mikey’s appalling voting record over the last two years, and she could have done that earlier on even with the corporate media tut-tutting about supposedly going negative, which she would have done well to disregard anyway).
To illustrate about how difficult it is for a Dem to win PA-08, let me point out that, in 2006, Patrick Murphy barely lost the Bucks County portion of the district, but won enough of the “slivers” of Montgomery County and Philadelphia to win the district overall. Well, when the district was redrawn in 2010, those silvers were removed and replaced with Repug strongholds, of course.
Think about that for a minute the next time you hear anyone point out how supposedly “moderate” Bucks County is. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran, was running when the Bush Administration was still in power, with the debacle in Mesopotamia becoming totally apparent (and Mikey the Beloved was totally tethered to it, as you might expect) and the Katrina catastrophe was still fresh in everyone’s minds, with Dubya’s approval numbers sinking like a stone as a result. And Murphy still lost Bucks (not whining about it, just stating the truth).
(Also, I think this was a rather hilarious commentary by the Philadelphia Inquirer, assuming that Mikey would honor his term limits pledge. This guy once made a term-limit pledge too, and after last night, he’s going back to Washington also…if past is prologue, then his main opponent Aryanna Strader did well in Berks and OK in Chester counties, but Pitts probably cleaned up thanks to those poor saps in Lancaster County once more).
Returning to Mikey, I honestly would like to know how he would have fared without the benefit of his full-page ads that, in typical fashion, ran in the Bucks County Courier Times for about two weeks prior to the election. I would say that that more than neutralized that paper’s lack of an endorsement (as well as the paper’s total failure to report on this stunning development).
And while I’m on the subject of the Courier Times, is there a bigger bunch of jokers than that paper’s editorial board, which, except for Santarsiero and Galloway, basically punted on many of its endorsements (including deciding to say nothing about Casey and “Teabag Tom” Smith)?
And while the paper had the right to endorse Willard Mitt Romney here, they did so in part for the following reason: “Social Security is on the cusp of insolvency”…
Uh, no.
Finally, the most hilarious notion I’ve heard yet is that the results of this election will make the Republican Party reach out to minorities and other demographics that helped propel President Obama to a second term, as well as achieving victory for other Dems.
Really? You mean we’ll actually be spared the sight of another clown show of GOP presidential candidate “debates” like what we had to endure earlier this year, which was aimed at ginning up support from the Teahadists and practically no one else?
That’s almost too funny for words.
Take a look at this chart. This is the future of today’s Republican Party, eventually sinking like a stone as elderly white conservatives shed their respective mortal coils and pass from this world into the next.
And take future GOP electoral prospects right along with them (Update 11/8/12: And take a look at this one too).
Update 11/7: By the way, in my prior comments, I didn’t mean to blow off Kathy Boockvar. I think she ran pretty much a common-sense, centrist kind of a campaign. And in a lot of places depending on which election cycle you’re talking about, that might have been good enough to win.
However, what I tried to point out above is that, for a Democrat to win in PA-08 anymore, you need to upset the proverbial apple cart to get attention from enough voters who would only vote for a Dem if they were thoroughly disenchanted with a Repug. As an example, Florida’s Patrick Murphy defeated the thoroughly odious Allen West in Florida, but even as bad as West is, he still garnered a huge percentage of the vote. I use that example because, based on my admittedly limited review, I think that district in FLA mirrors PA-08 in a lot of ways (and as I also pointed out, the fact that a just-about daily newspaper of a fairly large circulation carries the proverbial water of Mike Fitzpatrick on a continual basis doesn’t help matters, but I honestly don’t expect that to change).
Running as a Dem in PA-08, you’ve got to really “go big” on the issues and somehow get your message through the filters of the cable shouters, other commercial media including print and broadcast and the wingnutosphere directly to the people. And if I knew how to do that (and if I had enough money and the right pedigree, which I don’t), well, hell, I might even take a crack myself. And in PA-08, you’ve got to do that and also find a way to dismantle the “moderate Mikey” mythology perpetuated by the Courier Times as well as radio station WBCB, with its news director Pat Wandling also serving as one of Mikey’s biggest mouthpieces. And so far, as I said, that hasn’t been accomplished yet.
To be fair to Boockvar, though, you can’t pretend to be something you’re not. I had a chance to speak with her briefly while working the phones in Bristol, PA recently, and I found her to be engaging and thoroughly professional. She would have been a great rep, but we are where we are. I hope she and her family can now take the time to put all this noise behind them and reconnect with each other once again.
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Election Stuff
Congratulations to President re-elect Obama!
...and here is a clip for the occasion (after we take a good, long, deep breath - well, we still have work to do).
Update 11/7/12: And by the way, congratulations also to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren…
…and Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin…
…and Congressperson-elect Tammy Duckworth…
…and Congressman-elect (in Florida) Patrick Murphy…
…and Congressman-elect (also in Florida once more) Alan Grayson!
...and here is a clip for the occasion (after we take a good, long, deep breath - well, we still have work to do).
Update 11/7/12: And by the way, congratulations also to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren…
…and Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin…
…and Congressperson-elect Tammy Duckworth…
…and Congressman-elect (in Florida) Patrick Murphy…
…and Congressman-elect (also in Florida once more) Alan Grayson!
Monday, November 05, 2012
Monday Stuff
It’s a bit late to do anything about #3 here, but there’s a lot of other good voting info in this video…
…and I haven’t had much of anything to say about Bob Casey, who is running for re-election tomorrow as one of PA’s U.S. senators, the other being the thoroughly wretched “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey.
I guess one of the reasons is because, as nearly as I can tell, Casey hasn’t done a good job with social media (maybe wrong?), but apparently he’s run a few T.V. ads to make up for it. That’s not to deny the fact that I think he’s done a good if unspectacular job; maybe he inflated his role in keeping the Harley Motorcycle plant in York, but at least he did something about the potential job loss (puts the lie to one of those ridiculous claims, the one about Casey supposedly being a "job killer"). He also was chiefly responsible for securing an extension into this year of a 2 percent payroll-tax cut for 150 million wage earners. Casey also got $250 million added to the new health-care law for pregnant women in need of more acute care. Tom Smith, on the other hand, is a no-exceptions extremist on abortion, having bizarrely compared a pregnancy resulting from rape with having a child out of wedlock here (like too many other Republicans). Also, coming from a "big coal" background, Smith would do his best to gut any environmental legislation, which, again, makes him a typical Republican (just keep convincing yourself that climate change had nothing to do with Sandy)...
…and lest I forget, let’s all go out and support Steve Santarsiero also tomorrow, running for re-election as our state representative for PA-31 (noted here)…
…and don’t forget to help Kathy Boockvar also (and if you want a reason to vote against Mikey the Beloved, take your pick from here)…
…and though I wish Number 44 hadn’t dismissed public-sector employment here so quickly (I honestly don’t think that was his intention, however), I definitely agree with the rest of what he said here, and I think President Obama makes a good case for another term...
…and I have kind of a mixed record with this pre-voting motivational (sort of) video, but here it is again anyway, for what it’s worth – leave everything in the road tomorrow, people!
…and I haven’t had much of anything to say about Bob Casey, who is running for re-election tomorrow as one of PA’s U.S. senators, the other being the thoroughly wretched “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey.
I guess one of the reasons is because, as nearly as I can tell, Casey hasn’t done a good job with social media (maybe wrong?), but apparently he’s run a few T.V. ads to make up for it. That’s not to deny the fact that I think he’s done a good if unspectacular job; maybe he inflated his role in keeping the Harley Motorcycle plant in York, but at least he did something about the potential job loss (puts the lie to one of those ridiculous claims, the one about Casey supposedly being a "job killer"). He also was chiefly responsible for securing an extension into this year of a 2 percent payroll-tax cut for 150 million wage earners. Casey also got $250 million added to the new health-care law for pregnant women in need of more acute care. Tom Smith, on the other hand, is a no-exceptions extremist on abortion, having bizarrely compared a pregnancy resulting from rape with having a child out of wedlock here (like too many other Republicans). Also, coming from a "big coal" background, Smith would do his best to gut any environmental legislation, which, again, makes him a typical Republican (just keep convincing yourself that climate change had nothing to do with Sandy)...
…and lest I forget, let’s all go out and support Steve Santarsiero also tomorrow, running for re-election as our state representative for PA-31 (noted here)…
…and don’t forget to help Kathy Boockvar also (and if you want a reason to vote against Mikey the Beloved, take your pick from here)…
…and though I wish Number 44 hadn’t dismissed public-sector employment here so quickly (I honestly don’t think that was his intention, however), I definitely agree with the rest of what he said here, and I think President Obama makes a good case for another term...
…and I have kind of a mixed record with this pre-voting motivational (sort of) video, but here it is again anyway, for what it’s worth – leave everything in the road tomorrow, people!
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Sunday Stuff
Sounds like there were some problems at the brown shirt rally for Willard Mitt and Mr.-Puppy-Dog-Eyes-With-The-Shiv today at Shady Brook Farm (here and here – I’ve been there enough times to know how freaking cold it can get…it is a working farm, after all - Shady Brook and the Flemings also pulled similar nonsense here, noted in #3, and yes, I know they have the right to do it).
In the meantime, to help Kathy Boockvar, click here...
…and this little number goes out to Mikey The Beloved for all of those disgusting red road placards with the white lettering that are popping up all over Doomsy-land saying “Save Medicare, Vote Fitzpatrick” (and even though this is a great tune, I'm still uncomfortable with the borderline misogyny, truth be told).
In the meantime, to help Kathy Boockvar, click here...
…and this little number goes out to Mikey The Beloved for all of those disgusting red road placards with the white lettering that are popping up all over Doomsy-land saying “Save Medicare, Vote Fitzpatrick” (and even though this is a great tune, I'm still uncomfortable with the borderline misogyny, truth be told).
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